Stage Fright
by EverlastingEvanescence
Summary: People have been falling unconcoious and losing brain power, which can only mean that a certain evil game host and his wife are back in action. In the subplot, Sam tries to get over her fear of speaking in front of large crowds.


Stage Fright

"Alright, I got my presentation all ready!" Samantha Simpson said, looking over her flashcards. Sam made an entire PowerPoint presentation about how reading books improve memory and studying better than reading online, and she was excited to show her class and teacher the presentation. Rather than meet in class, they were to meet in the auditorium, which Sam thought was weird, but thought nothing of it. However, when she opened the door to the auditorium, she saw something that made her heart drop and beat a thousand miles per second at the same time; the auditorium wasn't just full of her classmates, but hundreds of other students and important looking adults.

"I…must be in the wrong room, maybe I misread the e-mail, yeah, that has to be it," Sam mumbled to herself before she headed to the exit, but her teacher stopped her at the door.

"Oh no Sam, you're in the right place. You see, I loved your essay and presentation so much that I picked you and four other students to present your projects in front of not only the rest of the school but a few distinguished members of the literacy department as well," the teacher said with a smile on his face while twirling his gray mustache. Sam, meanwhile, looked at her teacher with a fearful look on her face, before looking at the crowd filling the bleachers. "Oh, it's almost time for you to go, Sam. Everything is prepared on the stage, so let's get started," the teacher said, leading Sam to the stage.

Once Sam got onto the stage, she looked in front of her, looking at all the eyes staring at her. Her knees shaking and sweat pouring from her face, she took a few haggard breaths before she took out a flashcard and began reading.

"Uhh…hi…my report…is Samantha Simpson…and…uh…I…my name…is about how…reading books…can—no, that's not right. Uh, my name is Sam, and…uh…I…I," Sam stammered out, becoming more and more frightened every second she observed all the eyes in front of her, looking at her and seemingly judging her. "I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-," Sam stammered, her hands trembling to the point where a few flashcards fell out.

"Samantha, are you alright?" her teacher asked in concern, but Sam continued to stammer, too nervous to listen to her surroundings. However, she suddenly felt the urge to vomit, so she quickly put her hands over her mouth, and headed to the nearest trash can before she started throwing up. After almost a straight minute of vomiting, Sam lifted her head from the trash can, sweating even more profusely than before and taking more deep breaths. Sam's teacher walked up to her and put a supportive hand on her shoulder.

"Samantha, why don't you head to the nurse's office and we can reschedule your presentation?" he asked. Sam offered him a weak smile before nodding in agreement and trudging out of the auditorium and straight to the nurse's office.

**30 Minutes Later…**

"Hello! The Make You Feel Better Crew has arrived!" Alex Vasquez exclaimed as Sam's other friend, Clover Lamoreaux rolled her eyes and walked in front of her.

"Don't call us that. Now, Sammy, how are you doing?" Clover asked Sam, who was sitting in her bed with a pillow being held in front of her face. Rather than responding with words, Sam just moaned, which was muffled from the pillow. "That bad, huh?" Sam sighed before taking the pillow away from her face.

"I didn't know my presentation would be in front of all those people. It was terrifying!" Sam explained as Clover started rubbing her back consolingly.

"Well I'm sure you can find a way to make it work, Sam," Alex encouraged, giving Sam an encouraging smile.

"I appreciate that Alex, but I've been dealing with this for so long, that I'm…not sure if I can do anything about it. Maybe I can ask Mr. Powell for some sort of compromise. It's worked before after all," Sam responded, shrugging her shoulders with a small smile on her face.

"Well Mr. Powell does seem to like you, so it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world," Clover explained.

"But at the same time, I do want to try and become good at speaking in front of large crowds. I want to become a major journalist, and if I don't learn to get over this fear, I'll never be taken seriously as a journalist, which means I'll never have my own book written, I'll be stuck making awful advice columns in the local papers, I'll never be able to say my vows to Danielle at our wedding, I-!"Sam started mumbling, shaking and freaking out with her brain in complete disarray before Clover started shaking her out of her verbal diarrhea storm.

"Sam calm down! You're one of the smartest people in this entire school, I'm sure you can find a way to-," Clover started before a few tiles came off of the floor, and sucked them through the floor. As the girls started to fall, they had their arms crossed with blank looks on their faces. When they got to Jerry's office in WOOHP, they fell on the seat in front of Jerry's desk perfectly, sitting with their legs crossed. Jerry looked back at the girls in shock.

"Hmmm…you're surprisingly calm," Jerry stated.

"Jerry, you have done this so many times at this point that we're starting to become immune to these WOOHPings," Alex explained, as Sam and Clover nodded in agreement. Jerry shrugged before turning his computer on, showcasing a convention hall with people lying down on the floor, unconscious and in a pool of their own drool.

"So, they finally decided to add naptimes to these boring meetings? Sounds like a good idea to me," Clover commented, causing Alex and Sam to chuckle while Jerry raised an annoyed eyebrow.

"No Clover, these people are part of a journalists convention, and after a flash of green light they were rendered unconscious. What I want you three to do is find out what's going on," Jerry explained.

"Alright then Jerry, hand over the gadgets and let's get going," Sam said, before grabbing their pink heart shaped backpacks and headed towards their pink sports car.

"Wait, don't you want me to tell you what the gadgets do?" Jerry asked just as the three girls got into the car.

"Again Jerry, we have enough experience in this place to know these gadgets and find out what they do, but thanks anyway, Jerry," Sam called, before she turned the key to the engine, and drove out of the headquarters, the adrenaline temporarily making her forget about her public speech problems at school.


End file.
